Report Title:

Business Closure; Notice

 

Description:

Authorizes employers to provide less than 60 days notice of plant closing under certain circumstances.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

2174

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2002

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO DISLOCATED WORKERS.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that while the state and federal laws both require an employer to provide sixty days notice of a plant or workplace closing, the federal law recognizes reductions of the notification period under certain circumstances. The purpose of this Act is to conform the notice requirements of the dislocated workers law with its federal counterpart by incorporating the reduced notice periods into state law.

SECTION 2. Section 394B-9, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§394B-9 Notification. (a) An employer in a covered establishment shall provide to each employee and the director written notification of a closing, partial closing, or relocation at least sixty days prior to its occurrence.

(b) An employer in a covered establishment may provide the written notification less than sixty days prior to the occurrence if:

(1) As of the time that notice would have been required the employer was actively seeking capital or business which, if obtained, would have enabled the employer to avoid or postpone the closing and the employer reasonably and in good faith believed that giving the notice required would have precluded the employer from obtaining the needed capital or business; or

(2) The closing is caused by business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable as of the time that notice would have been required.

(c) No notice shall be required if the closing is due to any form of natural disaster, such as flood, earthquake, or the drought currently ravaging the farmlands of the United States."

SECTION 2. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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